Focusing on the concept of "commodity chains" within the food industry, this paper analyses the term's widespread and variable usage in both academic and policy-orientated work. Despite recent criticisms, the concept has retained its popular appeal alongside competing metaphors such as networks, circuits and assemblages. Examining the…

The direction, complexity and pace of rural change in affluent, western societies can be conceptualized as a multifunctional transition, in which a variable mix of consumption and protection values has emerged, contesting the former dominance of production values, and leading to greater complexity and heterogeneity in rural occupance at all…

This paper emerges from a current research project that examines the relationship between contemporary English rurality and notions of identity and belonging. While this is primarily a methodological narrative we argue that this narrative speaks to an analysis of current rural relations. The paper concerns itself with two key methodological issues…

Storytelling is a performance medium which is enhanced by the qualities indigenous to small towns: collective memory and common history. A type of narrative peculiar to small towns, the community-wide anecdote, is one example of storytelling. The transmittal of such tales is termed "endemic performance" because the retelling of the tales…

Critiques the usage of "rurality"--a key term in the field of "rural" studies. Suggests that the multiple meanings of "rurality" demonstrate the rupture of sign and signification discussed in recent debates concerning ideology, hegemony, and poststructuralism. Argues in favor of a productive dialog between Gramscian…

Bibliography for Appalachian Studies includes approximately 500 books, journal articles, government documents, and dissertations published 1998-99; emphasizes social sciences and education; and contains 25 topical headings. The largest categories are coal, industry, labor; economic conditions and development, poverty; education; ethnicity, race,…

For many teachers, an appointment to a rural school is their first experience of living and working in a context where they are highly visible and are likely to be known of and known about by far more people than they know of and know about. Space for "making errors" and recovering from them without impairment to becoming an effective…

A new feature in "Country Teacher,""Agrarian Visions" reminds rural teachers that they can do something about rural decline. Like to populism of the 1890s, the "new populism" advocates rural living. Current attempts to address rural decline are contrary to agrarianism because: (1) telecommunications experts seek to…

Rural sociology is intrinsically concerned with spatial dimensions of social life, but this underlying research tradition and its contributions to general sociology are little recognized. Concern with space, uneven development, and social relationships of peripheral settings have provided substantive boundaries and conceptual meaning to rural…

Discusses an undergraduate class' study of rural Clarion, Pennsylvania's linkages with the global community. Describes data collection methods. Reveals some indicators of the town's interdependence with the rest of the world. Lists questions for students concerning Clarion's global connections. Identifies possible interpretive topics that such…

Discusses sociological dynamics associated with rural United States, how these dynamics relate to the role of the rural school counselor, and what implications these have for counselor education programs. Discusses issues of isolation, time and money, visibility, lack of specialists, personal interaction, generalists, and local culture. (Author/NB)

A 1998 membership survey returned by 354 members of the Rural Sociological Society examined member characteristics, members in academic settings, current and future views of the society, the society's role as advocate for rural America, and work-related issues. Results indicate that age and membership have remained stable, diversity has increased,…

Describes Rural Sociological Society 1999 awards: Excellence in Instruction, Jill Belsky, for designing a college program in rural and environmental change, and Lori Cramer, for strengthening interdisciplinary linkages among rural sociology, forestry, and agriculture; Excellence in Extension, Emmett Fiske; Excellence in Research, Sonya Salamon;…

Some actors in the ''mainstream'' agricultural sector are beginning to engage in strategies of influencing public perceptions of farming, responding to public anxieties over industrialised agriculture and to a supposed separation of non-farming publics from food production. This paper focuses on agricultural shows as sites and events central to…

This paper explores the migration and cultural consumption practices of lesbian households within processes of rural change. Taking forward Phillips' (2004. Progress in Human Geography 28, 5-30) discussion of neglected geographies of rural gentrification, and building upon Halfacree's (2001. International Journal of Population Geography 7,…